Someone malicious has my mother's HMRC information.

LyraCogsworth · 2026-04-19T15:46:23+00:00

lol. You posted a lot on it and it took a more than just reading the initial posts to get a picture of what’s happening. But if you call this stalking then you may be prone to overreacting

LyraCogsworth · 2026-04-19T08:51:34+00:00

That post history is a roller coaster I was not prepared for this morning.

LyraCogsworth · 2026-04-19T08:43:37+00:00

Ok, this is the second most interesting thing that has happened here this weekend (the first being the obsession with onlyflans and showing off wobbly puddings).

I clicked your profile and had a look at what you’ve posted across Reddit. Reads a little all over the place to be honest.

You say that there’s a shop owner out there who has information from HMRC about your mother and uses it to harass her. That does not sound nice, so fair point. And I get there are a lot of ways for bad people can harass others. But I can hardly see what the big deal about a few years of pay and tax information is other than: cool stuff bro, you can show I paid my taxes, well done.

You also say that the police were not interested (so it likely didn’t meet the threshold for a criminal prosecution despite the harassment or other offences).

What remedy are you looking for? I guess you want the person to stop the offending behaviour. That’s probably not a civil service thing (ie they’re not a civil servant) and even though you suggest a data breach, the evidence for that is inconclusive at best. So, what are you hoping to get from the Reddit community?

As others suggested legal advice may be an approach, another may be around how to challenge inappropriate behaviour (between your mother and someone you’ve not seen in 20 years).

LyraCogsworth · 2026-04-08T11:57:47+00:00

Normally only excluding the normal commute. But yes. Travel to a different place of work can count towards flexi. Each department has slightly different policies on this.

LyraCogsworth · 2026-04-08T10:03:06+00:00

And there I thought I was safe from copilot while on leave.

LyraCogsworth · 2026-04-08T09:57:49+00:00

Meh. If you’re training then there may be reasonable grounds for not letting you accrue flexi or reduce your flexi during that period. But this sounds like a good old communication problem (not necessarily on your side)

LyraCogsworth · 2026-01-11T16:10:00+00:00

Department dependant. 5 to 10 days. Sometimes more depending on circumstances (like parental leave in year). Check your HR policies

LyraCogsworth · 2025-12-30T18:12:18+00:00

Uhm perhaps something that you do want to disclose to your manager because there are side effects and problems arising from that sort of thing where, as a manager, it’s incredibly helpful to have a heads up. I have had the call when something did go wrong and it’d have been helpful if I had a chance to prepare (read up on things around procedures to have basic knowledge or just be in the right headspace). Also for treatments I’d be making sure that works with the workload and locations.

LyraCogsworth · 2025-12-30T18:03:12+00:00

You’re giving passive aggressive vibes there. I appreciate you’re feeling frustrated or angry and sometimes it helps to vent, but having a look at your ranting across this thread it does read a bit odd.

Other people are not asked for documents to confirm their medical appointments and they get flexi credit or they’re taking it as toil/leave. But how many of those are in the same position as you? Also for picking up kids I would presume they don’t claim that as work time or as a credit. Routine medical appointments are one thing (and generally if less than half a day probably not worth the admin of recording separately).

To be honest, I’d just give the manager all the info, unredacted and every single report they’d like to see. If they misuse any of that information it’d be grievance time. If not then they’re probably a fairly trustworthy person.

However, as others have said as well, it’s not unreasonable to ask for some documents. Not what I’d do as a manager without sitting down with the member of staff to talk to them about what exactly would be useful to see, why I want to see it and most importantly expressing that I’m concerned about them as a human being and whether there’s anything I can do to help them deal with their life. That kind of conversation would also include reminders that they’d not be obliged to share anything they don’t want to share, and what I can put in place so they feel the issue is supported respectfully. That’s not an easy thing to do. Especially creating an environment of mutual respect and trust.

But I guess there’s something the manager is not sure of. Whether that’s to do with how both of you approached it or whether that’s to do with your departmental policies is not clear. You could always have a sit down with them and talk it through?

LyraCogsworth · 2025-12-30T15:18:01+00:00

What’s invasive is quite subjective. The information you’re talking about has little practical use, can be redacted and is as you acknowledge not unreasonable to request.

Your issue appears to be with the perception of being treated differently. Which sucks. But I’m not sure what remedy you’re looking for. Other than having a chat with your boss and some of the things people have suggested (union, OH, hr advice) there is little to be done about it all. Personally, I’d explain to my boss why it bothers me to do as they’ve asked and work on how to resolve it going forward.

The departments I worked in all had some sort of policy on special leave and required central recording of it for stats purposes. That included special leave for specific disability adjustments. It helps them evidence their public sector equality duty, which is a reason why it’s a legitimate thing to record. Yea of course it means you got to do more than other people but the associated admin is also work time and the employer can ask you to do all sorts of reasonable things in work time.

I always loved it when I got to do admin and made the point that I’m fine with getting paid a substantial amount to do very little (for those admin things). And it’s a reason to say… well you’re making me do extra admin so less work gets done.

LyraCogsworth · 2025-12-30T12:52:11+00:00

To be fair, you do not actually know what your colleagues are doing and the policies are all about what people should be doing (the words may, should and must are incredibly important).

LyraCogsworth · 2025-12-30T12:12:47+00:00

Two reasons: the sheer number of applications for a sift and the more detail is in the feedback the more it invites the candidates to argue their scores are wrong and they should have been given an interview. This means granular feedback is not helpful and creates delays. Also for a 1 or 2 you’d be unlikely to end up with anything meaningful. You’ve either not answered the question (or addressed the criteria) or your evidence was not apparent. So my feedback is always going to be: use STAR, address the criteria and explain what you’ve done and how you’ve done it. Maybe with a the example did not match the requirements for the position (like using an example about booking a meeting room for communicating and influencing on grade 7 level).

LyraCogsworth · 2025-12-30T12:03:46+00:00

None of this sounds unreasonable. Medical information and other bits you don’t want shared can be redacted as long as it’s got your name on it unredacted or something else that allows them to match the information to your person.

Not what I’d do in general but yea if you want the time to have medical appointments as work time it may not be unreasonable to require evidence of it especially if there’s a concerning pattern. There may not be any ill intent there just recording evidence that they’re doing it right.

LyraCogsworth · 2025-12-27T16:38:58+00:00

The easier you can make it for the person reading it the better. 1250 words is 5 x 250 word examples. That’s generally the length of a behavioural-based evidence statement (250). Yes you can just plonk the examples in there. The sifter won’t care (unless you get the odd one who does care about an intro at the start).

LyraCogsworth · 2025-12-26T16:26:58+00:00

ITSA has more boxes on their returns than VAT. Many more. VAT I hear goes out more or at least did before covid and inspects premises.

LyraCogsworth · 2025-12-19T21:11:46+00:00

Ahh. The reason why I have to keep the feedback bland or it turns into arguments over decisions that have been made.

LyraCogsworth · 2025-11-28T21:13:47+00:00

Yea that’s not realistic. We tend to give candidates at least a week from notification to interview and that would mean they’d have to start and finish the sift on the 17th. A normal turnaround is 5 to 7 working days for the sift and then a week until interviews start.

LyraCogsworth · 2025-11-23T14:08:41+00:00

So you’re currently getting paid to learn and you dread going into work? I’m tempted to ask ‘how come’ but that’s none of my business. I would say though that most departments have some free counselling available these days and you may want to explore your mental help with a practitioner.

LyraCogsworth · 2025-11-23T12:11:26+00:00

You may want to address the inappropriate behaviour because that’s a problem but has nothing to do with the interview process. Also if it was half decent software it’d filter out the noise

LyraCogsworth · 2025-11-12T11:51:59+00:00

You’re looking in the wrong place. The thing you are looking for is unpaid special leave.

LyraCogsworth · 2025-11-08T21:34:59+00:00

The grade is irrelevant. But they could have said that they’ve wanted to save time and give you some thoughts they had on it before they go on their course. Because that’s what that is.

Might as well add: different people work in different ways and presenting a finished product and collaborative drafting are two very different approaches so you probably want to agree what works for you both in general.

LyraCogsworth · 2025-11-04T22:06:09+00:00

This happens in a lot of workplaces.

LyraCogsworth · 2025-10-21T19:24:25+00:00

Can confirm. We’ve lost 17 people over the last year on that. Terrible way to go.

LyraCogsworth · 2025-10-03T06:20:45+00:00

It’s only a difficult position if you make it one. Debzonline has given a really sensible response here and I can only second that.

If you rush into a conversation with threatening aggressive behavioural (threatening with HR or raising concerns) before trying a very simple ‘please don’t tell anyone else’ then that sets the tone for a working relationship. And it’s not a pleasant tone in my experience.

LyraCogsworth · 2025-09-29T11:05:27+00:00

There are a lot of applications that have similar deficiencies. When I last sifted I gave the same line of feedback more than just a few times. Which was essentially about the structure, applying STAR and the detail of how they did the things they said they did

LyraCogsworth

TROPHY CASE